As you may have noticed from reading this blog, I’m typically not shy to express my views on what things ought to be fixed in our world and how we ought to fix them. While having a discussion of this type with some friends, I was asked in half-jest, “what’s wrong with our country, and what do we do to fix it?” The question was obviously asked without a genuine expectation of an reasonable answer, but also expressed a sincere concern with the political state of our nation – and perhaps a hope that two years at Harvard somehow gave me the secret to solving all the world’s problems. I initially shrugged off the question, thinking that the problems in our world are much too complex for any holistic solutions, and instead we ought to think more deeply about the individual issues we face as a society. However, I spent the next few days pondering the question and have a few thoughts to share on the topic. One of the first things that came to mind, thinking mostly of our political problems, was partisanship. While I have a deep distaste for partisanship and our country’s need to place every problem and solution in one of two distinct camps and refuse terms like compromise that built our nation – I can’t quite call it the root of all our problems. Not only does is partisanship have some beneficial consequences, I believe it’s more a symptom of a deeper problem than the root cause. As a deeply religious person I next thought about our country’s gradual separation, both publicly and privately, from God. While I believe this to be a major problem, I also have seen those seemingly close to God contribute to the world’s problems as well as witnessed Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, worshippers of ancestors and idols, and everyone in between possess the qualities that I believe make our world a better place, thus couldn’t settle on lack of religious devotion as society’s foundational problem. Keeping both those thoughts in mind, I’ve decided on what I believe to be the most fundamental problem with our society, but not without a disclaimer. I am no way claiming that I have a solution to the world’s problems or that they are so simple as to have one root cause that I, in my few days of pondering, have pinpointed. I simply would like to put forth a hypothesis as to one simple thing that could have significant impacts on the quality of our society.

So what’s wrong with our country? The problem, in my simple opinion, is that too few people are searching for truth. By searching for truth I don’t mean an abstract philosophical quest or even a specific religious zeal; I mean living life with a deep and sincere desire to know truth, rather than to permit ourselves the mental laziness that accepts what we hear and see without putting forth the effort to question. By searching for truth I mean constantly looking within ourselves and beyond ourselves, with a humble recognition of humanity’s limitations, for what is right. I don’t mean doubting what we believe, but we should ponder what we think we know and what others are telling us and question why we believe it. Such a search for truth, I believe, would lead us to seek out different opinions, to search the writings of past and present intellectuals, and to look beyond ourselves for enduring truth that surpasses humanity’s limited knowledge.

The qualities of one seeking for truth are a bit abstract, so I’ll try to illustrate with some examples. I’ve been reading (and by reading I mean listening to books on CD) to a lot of books and lectures about history lately, and thus am drawn as an example to the Founders of our country. I’ve always marveled that these men who lived in a time with so much less access to information and formal education had so much foresight and ability to change the course of history, government, and freedom for the better. Our Founders epitomized what I believe it means to be seekers of truth. They diligently studied all the information available from the past and present and applied it to set a course for the future. They did so while humbly recognizing their inability to know all the outcomes and the necessity of performing their labors in accordance with laws beyond the understanding of men – relying on the divine hand of Providence as they may have said it. They felt like the problems they faced were bigger than their own understanding, and searched diligently for the best answers.
In contrast, it seems contemporary thinking is dominated by those who believe their understanding is bigger than the problems, that if only their voice is heard loudly enough and enough people agree with them the problems would be solved. There doesn’t seem to be the yearning and searching for answers that, in our humility, we fear to answer incorrectly.

Our Founding Fathers believed the country’s future was fragile, and it was their duty to carefully move forward through their diligent study and effort, guided by Providence. I believe our country’s future is no less fragile now, only that we unfortunately believe we already know the answers, that we have control of the way forward and it’s success is secured in our current knowledge.

I believe this arrogance or laziness of thought is displayed in the symptoms I mentioned above. First, partisanship. Let me begin by saying that I in no way believe declaring oneself a member of a particular party is bad. When I speak of the ill effects of partisanship, I mean those that believe one side is wrong before they’ve heard the debate or even considered their own opinion. I mean those that believe members of another political party must be misinformed, ignorant, or immoral; but refuse to believe that their thoughts and arguments have merit. I always found it disappointing in my time at Harvard, surrounded by incredibly intelligent people, that about 60 seconds into a discussion with most people you could usually tell how they felt on every major issue facing the world. How is it possible that every issue in our complex world fits nicely into one of two camps, either on the right side or left? It seems to me that with our lack of diligence in searching for truth, we let ourselves be easily convinced by those that speak the loudest. We spend too much time looking for someone to agree with or believe, instead of putting forth the effort to find the truth on our own.
Second, our separation from God. Again let me state that I don’t believe a person’s particular religious zeal (or lack thereof) is the important factor. Instead, I believe our lack of searching for truth is evident when we fail to recognize that there is wisdom and knowledge beyond the bounds of humanity. It’s the searching, not the finding, I believe to be important. The problem is when we believe that we no longer need to look outside ourselves for the answers (regardless of the way that we choose to look outside ourselves). When we believe that we know the way forward and no longer need Divine guidance, we will quickly prove ourselves wrong.
With that said, I hope that reading and writing this blog provide us all an opportunity to continue our search for truth, hopefully finding more questions than answers. For when we have more answers than questions, we’ve likely failed in the search.